Backbeat
by Neon Daisies
Summary: He wonders sometimes how it took him so long to realize it, why it threw him for such a loop that first night he saw her at the party. Pepper Potts is a current battle zone between fear and want, and after years of denial, he’s beginning to think that wan
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** sometimes you meet someone who's right for you in every way. Sometimes you exchange e-mails with that person, sometimes you IM that person…and sometimes you end up writing a story with that person and blaming its existence on them.

You can probably tell that I'm not talking about Tony and Pepper...and that I'm being just a little dramatic. No…this is a force far more powerful than T/P…or at least it's a force powered by T/P. 4persephone and I have joined forces (in order to take over the world) to bring you a new fic. No matter what she might say at a later date, she started it. Just remember that. ;)

A general rule of thumb while reading this is that 4persephone is writing the bits from Tony's point of view and I'm writing from Pepper's, though we exchange story bits so often this really is a collaborative effort. (I will take some blame for all this, but I didn't start it. I wonder how many times I can get away with saying that. ;P )

**Disclaimer:** if I owned Iron Man or anyone associated with it, I'd probably still write fanfic, but then it wouldn't be fanfic. It'd be canon. Lucky for the Iron Man 'verse I'm on the outside looking in. Credit Stan Lee, Universal, Marvel, and whoever else for intellectual property. Credit Jon Favreau, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, et al for bringing them to life.

* * *

There are things about her now that escaped his attention before. They're mostly details he never bothered to notice because he gets too focused. He knows it can be a weakness; a kind of myopic Achilles heel that springs up out of his natural arrogance and what he knows is his tendency to rush into things. He remembers as a boy, working on a particularly complicated algorithm with his father. It took him only half an hour to solve, but two hours to prove, much to his nine year old frustration. Howard Stark, with all the wisdom of his age had only smiled and gently whapped him upside the head when he'd tried to storm out of the room. Then he'd tossed his son a piece of chalk and gestured to their basement's ancient chalkboard. "Sometimes you have to step back and see how it all works together, Anthony. Start with the biggest possible picture, and work down until the details start to make sense."

The same principle is applying to his life these days as well, though the blackboard's getting bigger.

She's much more complicated than he ever imagined, and he's beginning to realize that this pleases him. It's a bit like discovering an unopened box in a dusty corner of your attic, and taking the time to sift through its contents. Of course he's never in all his life been able to see Pepper as anything but immaculate, so the dustiness doesn't apply so much as the idea she's in some ways hiding all her good bits...

He's never realized until lately just how much of herself she conceals. He's always assumed her frank nature and temper meant you got what you saw, but he's becoming aware that she has much deeper layers. With every day he's becoming less and less fooled by the mask and more aware of the woman that lies somewhere beneath it.

She's kind of like string theory, endlessly intricate, yet somehow more than can be contained completely in mathematical language. Some days he can predict her all the way down to the thing she'll order for lunch, and other days he can't contain her at all.

She tends to be prim, but she is not particularly proper. A person who couldn't survive in his kind chaos would never have been able to rein him in, in the almost effortless way that she does on a daily basis. Her perfectly tailored suits and high heeled shoes are a kind of uniform she puts on every morning before she climbs down into the trenches beside him. She's a redhead with a redheaded temper, though she keeps her anger on a leash so short, he sometimes surprised that it hasn't chewed off her ankles like some kind of mutt.

Of course when her anger does erupt it's far less like a Chihuahua than it is a Great Dane, but he likes it when she shows her claws.

Virginia Potts is methodical, patient and organized. She has an almost photographic memory, and an amazing ability to absorb and put together a minutia of details. What he does with numbers she does with faces, places and dates - he's never seen her forget a name. He's seen her meet a man at a party and talk with his for exactly seven minutes, then use that same contact a full ten months later to locate a shipment of supplies everyone else says can't be found.

She plays the world of business like Stradivarius played his violin, and the result of her kind of music is pretty much the same. She is irreplaceable and he stopped denying it years ago.

He hired Pepper because he liked the way her makeup couldn't hide all of her freckles. He kept her on because he realized almost as an aftershock that she might just be the best thing he's ever stumbled over professionally. He loves making her pick out all of the personalized gifts he mails out at Christmas because until recently her exquisite taste and tendency to be unconventional always increased the number of times he got laid exponentially.

She could be far more than his PA if she wanted to, though he tries not to think about it much. Instead he contents himself with making her his de facto right arm and paying her obscenely large bonuses when she's not around to try and stop him. He's the one who bought her the car, her house, and though she threw a royal fit when she found out, a good ten percent of stock in the company she helps to run. She's more wealthy now that half the board members, not that anyone would know it. She dresses in conservative midline clothes that only he knows enough to realize are usually hand tailored. She loves good food, amazing wine and shoes that cost more than Happy's entire monthly salary.

Pepper at her most basic is refreshingly easy to understand. She loves order and she loves doing good for people: her favorite part of her job is the all functions she gets to organize for charity. Her eye for art is exquisite though she tends to have less tolerance for the Avant Garde than him. She's too much a classicalist to have much patience for what she deems to be superficiality.

'Of course that's less than half of the list.' She has a mind like a steel bear trap when it comes to remembering his promises and she rarely has to raise her voice to get her point across. When she does lose her temper it's always spectacular, and it's almost always directed at him.

She has more passion in her than she fully knows what to do with, and sometimes the sight of her trying to keep herself from ripping him to shreds in the most erotic thing he's ever seen. Pepper Potts is a lot of things, and very few of them don't appeal to his baser sense of carnality.

He wonders sometimes how it took him so long to realize it, why it threw him for such a loop that first night he saw her at the party. He also wonders if she might have been deliberately trying to throw him off her scent with her conservative suits and neatly pulled back hair hairstyles. She's certainly never worn a dress like that or let her hair free when she knows he's going to be attending the same party.

She's scared of him, he knows, or scared of whatever it is that burns between them. He's not sure why, but he's beginning to have his suspicions, and he's growing tired of waiting. Pepper Potts is a current battle zone between fear and want, and after years of denial, he's beginning to think that want may have pulled into the lead.

He's never seen a woman more ready for sex; hell she's three thrusts away from orgasm. She'd deny it of course, but he can read the signs and read the truth of it in the look she can't quite keep out of her eyes and the lingering tension in her body. She may be the biggest sensualist he's ever encountered, and pretending otherwise doesn't change the facts, it will only serve to make the explosion more memorable.

She thinks she's fooling him, and she may even think she's fooling herself, but one of these days she's going to break and he intends to be there when it happens, because unlike her, he doesn't overthink the obvious.

He knows she loves him and he's pretty damn sure it's mutual. She may be able to watch him sleep with other women, but he has no intention of allowing her the same kind of courtesy.

* * *

She's got a nipple piercing, and he knows it because he's seen it. Well not seen it exactly, but seen the shadow of it under the line of her workout shirt on the days she uses the weight room that is down in his basement. Today it's hot enough she's taken off her black cotton suit coat, and he can see the slight outline of the metal loop through a thin cotton shirt that is sticking to her skin when she comes in from her second batch of morning meetings.

It's been god awful hot the last week at a minimum, and she's starting to wilt. Her condo is in the middle of a renovation that has the AC turned temporarily off, and yet she refuses to get a hotel room.

He wants to take her and submerge her in a giant tub of ice just to see the melt off cool her face and run in ribbons down her skin.

She has freckles everywhere, including on the back of her neck. That patch of skin has a tendency to goose bump and become shudder sensitive whenever she pulls her hair up. It is up today and he has to clench his fists and shove his hands into his pockets to resist the temptation to take the mug of lemonade he's made and press it against that long expanse of skin.

If he touches her now something unrecoverable is going to happen, so instead he settles for watching her from a distance as she settles in at her desk.

He doesn't miss her restlessness or the way she squirms in her seat when she settles. The unconscious quiver makes him instantly, irretrievably breathless. Her cell phone rings and she picks it up with a slightly strained hello, before sighing heavily and leaning back in her seat.

"No...you didn't call too early. The meetings ended half an hour ago, and I should make it out of here on time. No, I'm not sick...just hot, tired and cranky. Sometimes really wish I could just reform all my ethical standards about murder." She shakes her head at something the other person says, "No, I definitely don't want to cancel tonight. Same time as always, Taylor - I'll met you down at the club. Be prepared for serious trolling..." There's a moment of silence then before she exhales, reaching back to unleash her hair. Red spills like a river across the curve of her shoulders. "All I can say is wear comfortable shoes, and bring extra money for a taxi. I may not end up going back to my house tonight."

'Like hell.' Rings the statement like a bell in his head. He goes down the basement to close up the shop without ever telling her he was watching. Tonight, Anthony Stark is going to resume an old habit known as clubbing.

He's been abstinent six months, and he's not as good at it as she is. If she's getting laid, he's sure as hell coming along for the ride.

He figures out where she's going by tapping the TomTom in her car. Not that it is really necessary, Pepper is distracted for the rest of the work day and prone to the unthinking babbling he associates with her being under pressure. It's subtle, of course - she flips a digit on one note she's taking then notices and quickly corrects herself. She keeps letting her eyes drift out to the cliff-side view, and her fingers tap edgily on the surface of her desk.

The third time he catches her eyes straying to the clock he takes a small kind of pity.

"I believe, I'm going to spend the next three hours surfing, Pepper. Why don't you take the rest of the day off and go yell at the idiots who I assume still haven't fixed your air conditioning..."

He uses the number of seconds she takes to agree as a judge of how bad off she is. The fact she nods before he's even finished speaking is all that he really needs to know.

He stands there as she gathers things in her purse and sets the last pile of files back in her drawer, wondering if she realizes just how poorly she's managed to hide her shaking.

Curiosity overwhelms him just as she's about to leave, and he can't resist reaching out to catch her by her arm. The eyes she lifts to meet his are wide and a little dilated. "Are you all right, Pepper?" He tries to keep his tone innocent, but there's a subtle purr in his base register that makes her shudder as she looks at her skin firmly encased by his.

His eyes are intense. "I know the board is full of idiots, but today you just seem really uneasy. Is there anything I can do to help?"

She flushes from her chest to her hairline and carefully extracts her hand. "I'm fine, Mr. Stark just a little...off...I guess. It's mostly the weather."

"Overheated, Potts?" He can't entirely keep the innuendo from his voice, but then again, she's learned to expect nothing less from him, and she's heard much worse. Her blush is high but her chin goes up just a little and she manages to give him a look that would make any school teacher proud.

"If that will be all, Mr. Stark, I've got to go." She extracts her hand from his with an insistent tug and all but flees from the room. He waits until her car has pulled out of the garage to go and shower.

He's not sure exactly what type of club she's heading for, but he's reasonably certain it doesn't matter. He settles for a black pair of smooth leather pants that can be fancy or rogue depending what he puts on top of them, and a dark clean cut shirt. He has a pair of boots in the back of his closest he seldom wears. They're a little informal for most establishments that he frequents, but tonight he plays an inexplicable hunch.

When Jarvis pulls up the location of her car two hours later he's totally surprised, and yet not surprised at all. Serendipity is a club he very seldom frequents, though not because of the food. It's just too out far his normal traveling circles, and he doesn't like to bring his better cars out here. The security in the neighborhood isn't bad per say, but the population also isn't as used to the sight of a Mercedes Benz here as they are in other places.

Serendipity is actually an old renovated brick warehouse on the corner of the cross street in the downtown. It's kind of rugged on the outside, jus like the stylized base beat that the bands play within. He never would have imagined Pepper Potts frequenting a Alternative/Goth club, but maybe like him, she's just really fond of their chicken wings.

He's glad he dressed down and glad for the pants and the boots. The security guard at the door gives him a single raised eyebrow when he asks for his ID, but otherwise says absolutely nothing. The band's music hits him like a wave as he steps through the door, and he can feel his pulse thrumming. Serendipity is full tonight, packed to the gills. There are so many people he had to push through the crowd just to get to the bar top, where he appropriates himself a stool and orders himself a appetizer platter.

He sees the bottles stacked up on the shelf behind the server and decides to forgo whiskey in favor of a mug of what's on tap. The stuff here isn't refined enough for his tastes, and he can smell already how much he's going to want the barbeque wings.

The food comes back impressively fast and he tips the girl generously. He watches her eyes go wide as he hands her enough rent money to see her through for what he imagines for her is at least two months. "Thank you, Sir...can I get you anything else?" He wonders why it feels so strange to see someone genuinely grateful for a simple act of kindness as he lifts the tray and goes upstairs to find a place where he can watch her come in.

He knows she's been here awhile or he wouldn't have been able to locate her. Still once he gets up in the loft area above the dance floor he has no trouble spotting her. She's down by the band at a table in the corner, and what she's wearing tonight is something he's sure he's never seen her in before.

Pepper doesn't like to wear colors. Or rather she doesn't wear them to work. Her entire work wardrobe is grey, black or dark blue, which tends to tone down the rest of her coloring. True, the contrast the darker shades play out in opposition to her skin has always been different, but this is another type of eye opening entirely.

She's wearing a dress that flows in sheets from her bust line to an uneven hem, and though it's black as well, there are deep splashes of color. Her breasts are barely encased in an almost emerald green fabric that hides the nipple ring even less than her white shirt did. Her hair is a riot of curls that she otherwise must spend hours squashing down into some semblance of order.

She stands up from the table after drinking the last of whatever is in her glass, and his nostrils flare as the back reveals more skin than even California could consider decent or legal.

She looks phenomenal. She looks like a billion bucks. She looks like she's a queen among her minions, and he is getting hard just watching her walk to the bar. He hasn't known until this moment that she had a dress like that, he hadn't known virtually anything apparently. He'd seen other women in this kind of outfit. He'd always tried to avoid them. For one thing that much skin should have made her look like a hooker instead of so damn inapproachable.

Or maybe _not_ inapproachable, he realized in alarm as he watched the several dozen men at the counter turn to watch her cross the dance floor. He needed to get down there, and he needed to get down there now before she accepted a drink or a dance. Otherwise some guy was going to get punched and he was going to get locked in jail for the rest of the evening.

He takes the stairs two at a time, all but bowling through a pack of people at the bottom. This causes enough commotion that she turns from the bartender to see what's causing the noise, just in time to see him push through the crowd. Her eyes widen and her jaw drops as she sees him standing reach the bottom step with his hands on his hips and the first two buttons of his shirt unfastened.

He freezes in place when she sees him, and rakes his eyes down the length of her body, then clenches his jaw and tries to decide what in hell he's supposed to say, since he didn't think it out before he came down the stairs.

He comes up with nothing but the words 'I want you' and even he's not that suicidal, so he stands there, and simply keeps on looking.

He stares and he stares, than he finds himself smirking. She stares right back until her nipples tighten under the fabric of her dress, and her posture shifts backward just a little. They remained locked there in shock and astonishment for several seconds before she gives in and says his name. The sound of it comes out on an astonished whimper.

Then she frowns, and he knows without a doubt that she's either going to break within the next hour, or she is going to intentionally kill him.

"Anthony Stark." Somebody says from behind him. He frowns and turns around to see a man approaching him from behind...well more of a boy actually, not that he cares. The kid might well have a chest to envy and enough jewelry in his face to make him look thirty, but there was a time Tony had grown the sharp goatee on the younger man's face for the very same reason.

The kid was probably a manager, or some kind of DJ. Judging by the look of shocked rapture on his face, he was also absolutely ecstatic to see him. 'Fuck it.' Some dark voice spoke in his head. "Sorry no. Though I've been told that I look a great deal like him." Across the room he saw Pepper blink and his lips curl in a smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get over there and shake off the leeches from my girlfriend."

Then he blows right by the idiot and comes to stand in front of her with nerves that are burning and singing.

* * *

She sees him coming and all she can do is go into lockdown mode before he can reach her. In her head, Pepper puts on her armor - below the knee skirt, button up white shirt, suit jacket. In her head, Pepper has her hair twisted behind her so that it can't distract her or anyone around her. In her head, Pepper tries desperately not to notice how good Tony Stark looks as he comes to stand in front of her. She does not notice the tendons in his neck or the sheen of sweat in the hollow between them. She does not notice the predatory ease of his walk. She absolutely, for the love of god, does not notice the way his eyes slide down her body, hit the floor, then bounce up along the same path.

She doesn't.

"Mr. Stark." She ignores the way his eyes flare at her deliberate use of his title. Fine! So she's not in a business suit and he's dressed in a pair of leather pants that make her want to grab his ass and pull his body into hers, but that's not the point. The point is not that she'd been panting over him all day. The point is that she'd been panting over him all day while knowing she'd never, ever, _ever_ do anything about it.

"Have I ever told you how much I love it when you use pet names?"

He's so...and his eyes…and his voice… And Pepper can swear that her back teeth hurt from the swell of lust that rises inside of her with ferocious strength. She rides it down like the experienced veteran she is, but she's well aware that every time she has to, the journey gets a little longer and a little rougher. This particular effort after a long day of waiting him out and then mentally preparing herself for this evening leaves her trembling. Her shoulders are tight, and her thighs are clenched, and in the constantly changing light she swears he can see all of it.

And that he likes what he sees.

This time he doesn't ask if she wants to dance. He doesn't give her the opportunity to refuse what she doesn't have a choice about in the first place. He most definitely doesn't do anything so proper as to take one of her hands in his. No, both of his hands go immediately for her waist, pulling her up against him. Not too close. No, she knows he's not that stupid. But his hands are strong and he moves her hips with the music even though she's staring him down through narrowed eyes, shooting him a look that should have had him reclaiming his hands and his wits from wherever he'd checked them.

"What are you doing?" she hisses. She can't speak any louder than that; doesn't want him to hear the lust choking her.

"Pretending I'm not Tony Stark," he answers immediately, innocently, as if his hands aren't kneading the small of her back. As if the inside of his thigh isn't brushing against the outside of hers as he moves them further into the crowd of dancers in front of the stage. The presence of so many bodies forces them closer together without his maneuvering. "That is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What?" She jerks her head back, can't control the shock moving over her features. How did he _know_?

He raises one eyebrow in mock admonishment. "Come now, Potts. We both know you wouldn't be caught dead with me." His smile – dangerous, edged – said, 'We both know you're dying to be caught _by_ me.'

The band changes songs. A deep bass thrum fills the room, fills the hollow places of her chest so that soon even her heartbeat is overwhelmed by it. Dark…moody…matching the thrum of blood through her veins until she's aware of little more than the beat and Tony's mouth right by her ear. He inhales and his chest brushes against hers. "Allow me to make an executive decision…"

'If it involves you, me, and a flat surface, the answer is yes.'

She damns him as she closes her eyes tightly and prepares to ride the swell down again, to force it back down if necessary. It isn't Tony's fault he has the worst timing in the world, she tries to remind herself. He always has, always will. And just because he's dancing with her now doesn't mean she can't still slip away and find some other man to take her raging need for Tony Stark out on.

"…but I've just amended the dress code for casual Fridays."

'I agree on the condition that you wear those pants and nothing else.'

She turns her face towards him, just the slightest bit. "I think that's possibly the worst idea you've ever had."

His chuckle rumbles low in his throat. It's the sound of satisfied male. "No, it's not." He's close enough that she can smell his breath: Peppermint and barbecue sauce. Not a trace of alcohol. "Want to know what the worst idea I've ever had was?"

Pepper nods mutely, her mind still considering all the implications of her boss dancing with her while not the _least_ bit intoxicated. Of there being nothing to blame for the heat dancing between them but raw attraction and her oversexed body.

"My worst idea," he murmurs so that only she can hear him, and that just barely, "was deciding I shouldn't lock us both in your office this afternoon so I could find out what you taste like."

'Ughn…' Pepper's mouth drops open in helpless response when he presses his mouth to the skin below her ear and her eyelids drop like she wants his pants to.

"My worst idea," he whispers against her skin, "was not telling you how much I fucking missed you the moment I stepped off that plane." He's talking faster now, the way he always does when he's so wrapped up in a project that little else in the world exists but him and the focus of his attention. Every word makes his lips brush against her, and each brush makes her spine quiver like a tree in the wind. "My worst idea was sending you to Stark Industries to find information on Obadiah instead of pulling you over the desk and into my lap so I could find out how very hot you are _here_." His lips close over her earlobe as his thigh presses between hers.

Helpless to stop herself, Pepper slides her leg behind his and pushes against him. "Damn it," she hisses before she presses her mouth against his shoulder so that her shuddering moan doesn't reach any farther than the two of them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **back by popular demand. ;) You guys are all amazing. Picks up shortly before the last one ended. 4persephone doing Tony's POVs, me doing Pepper's.

* * *

"My worst idea was sending you to Stark Industries to find information on Obadiah instead of pulling you over the desk and into my lap so I could find out how very hot you are _here_."

His lips against her earlobe are enough to make her moan, though she buries her head in his shoulder in an obvious attempt to hide it. He's still got his knee between her thighs and up against the heat that's between them, and it's a good thing he's got his hands linked around the small of her back since he can feel the wobble in her knees.

In his arms Pepper is fragmenting, or maybe coming back together. He can't quite bring himself to care which of them it is beyond this moment and the taste of her skin. She smells like citrus and hunger, and it's almost left him crazy.

This is it, and he knows it beyond hesitation. She is already crazy herself, judging by the way she's literally trying to crawl into his skin. This is going to happen and he knows it in his gut and other organs that are far less polite to mention. When he took her ear in his mouth, her hands clenched and her toes curled. There's no mistaking the way she's unconsciously pushing her pelvis against his thigh in a desperate rocking motion...

He needs to get them off the dance floor and somewhere more private before they either end up in the tabloids or get arrested for public indecency.

"Damn it." She hisses again even as he pulls her closer. Her tone is a velvet drenched growl that makes his spine tingle and his pants push at seams that are already overstressed. His hips are pressed up against hers in a manner that's no longer even remotely subtle: hard-ons tend to be unmistakable.

It takes all the focus that he has back them off of the dance floor. He's headed toward the corner bathroom and the small space beside it that is their only current option. Yes, he'd prefer the front door, but the crowd's just too tightly packed, and at least behind the stairs there's some illusion of privacy.

Pepper is moving with him, by necessity if not design. She's still plastered to his front and her hands are fisted in his shirt, though her eyes are closed and he doubts she's aware she's moving with him. Regrettably her mind is finally starting to process, and the undesirable outcome is going to be a long string of words.

"Tony what are you… -shudder-" They're almost there. He bends and swallows her lips out of sheer desperation. He needs to shut her up or this is not going to happen.

He's made an executive decision. He's the boss for a change. In this case that means he's going to kiss her, and she's going to let him. Somewhere along the way Pepper Potts just stopped trusting both her instincts and her body. He's going to re-teach her both skills.

She wants this and he knows it; the hurt of denial is pouring off her in waves. There's a fear in her so strong that that it's eating her alive, and by damn he's going to excise it.

This avoidance is turning her into a person that neither of them recognize – who she'll loathe in the morning. He. Will. Not. Let. This. Happen.

So he half dances and half pushes her all the way to the corner. His hands haven't left her back and hers have unconsciously clasped his ass - they're both unsteady. His lips leave her mouth and his tongue snakes wetly down the side of her neck, along the skin below her ear. Her groan this time isn't muffled, though it is covered by the band. She's lost again in the heat of skin and tongue and he gives no retreat.

Not that she's asking for retreat. Not at all. It's not _his_ tongue that's currently down _her _throat.

Three seconds later they impact the wall with a muffled thud. She breaks the kiss and moans into the small space where they're hiding as she speaks through clenched teeth. Her hands slide up his back, and then one cups behind his head. "Oh God what we are doing…Damnit, what are we doing?!"

It's the same old question – which he doesn't bother to answer. He's got his hand up her skirt and her skin is like liquid silk beneath the fabric as he lets his touch do the talking. He grins into her neck as his hands find molten heat. "If I have to explain it to you, Potts, it's obvious we should have been doing it sooner."

She's not wearing underwear – not exactly a shock considering the dress. Still he can feel the edge of her garters, and slickness immediately above where it's coated her thighs. She squirms at the contact as he ghosts up to her center, and bites her lip as his fingers tease the red nest at the junction.

Her hands come up to fist in his hair and pull his head back. He thinks at first she's going to kiss him, but she's only locking his eyes.

"We _can't_…" she almost wails.

"_LIKE HELL_." And he buries two fingers deep in her body.

The result is immediate, ferocious and powerful. Her head snaps back to connect with the wall as she convulses her whole body. He pushes his own neck forward and takes her lips in his own again, and the action covers her startled yelp even as his thumb moves and mercilessly finds a rhythm atop her clit.

Her pelvis jerks, her eyes roll back and it's all over. The shockwave rolls through her body and her knees all but buckle till he's holding her upright. He should back off and let her recover, but he's never been reasonable. Instead he keeps her there on the edge until the second wave of tremors hit her again, and they both sink to the ground.

"I can't believe you just did that." She finally murmurs. She's squashed between him and the wall like a rag doll, but she's at least not trying to run. He can still feel her muscles rippling around his fingers occasionally.

He waits until it stops completely, and drags them out slowly. The smell on his fingers is pungent, and he inhales it deeply. "Yeah, well you gave me no choice, Pepper. I mean honestly… 'I may not be going home…?' Your choice here is me, me or me."

"Nine to five," she mutters, ignoring the fact that this is the second time he's implied he knew she'd gone out looking for sex. Falling into their verbal routine is the easiest way to give her the time she needs to think. As long as her mouth is moving he won't realize how fast her brain is processing, searching for a way - any way - out of this. "You are allowed to give choices between nine and five. And don't tell me that nine pm to five am counts."

He shakes his head. "If that were true you wouldn't even be here. This dress is about your inability to leave your work at the door, not my alleged misbehavior. I'm here and this is _real _and you're still trying to shove us into a box so you can what, organize my filing cabinet?" He doesn't hide his snort of disgust.

"You're my _boss_. Taking care of you is my _job_. A job I am compensated for, I might add."

"Pepper there is not enough money in the world to compensate for working for a self-absorbed arrogant asshole, which we _both_ know I can be. Come up with a better argument. I know that's not why you're still working for me."

She scowls. "Yes. It is. Because you made certain no one else would hire me if I left your employ without your permission."

"Unashamedly. But what's to stop you from taking the several hundred thousand dollars currently sitting in your savings account to start your own business? You'd be good at it. Hell you'd love it. Better hours, better coffee, and no asshole's dry cleaning to pick up. So why haven't you?"

This was so surreal. They are in the grimy back hallway of a downtown club, she's still holding onto him like she's surgically attached, his hand is still between her legs cupping her, and they're arguing about why she puts up with him. This should be sexual harassment territory. This should be a lawsuit in the making – doesn't the idiot understand that's half the reason she's always held back? – and if he hadn't just made her come harder than she'd made herself come in all her months of thinking about him she would be out of here right now.

That's enough for her to be shoving his hand away, for her to force him to take at least one step back so that she can breathe without touching him.

But not so far away that she can easily meet his eyes. Better to stare at his shoulders as she says in her coolest voice, "Mr. Stark, this is ridiculous. _You're_ being ridiculous."

"No," His voice replies. "I'm being a hyperactive, self-centered, arrogant spoiled brat. _You_ on the other hand are being an anal retentive, overly self-conscious, passive-aggressive little _shit_."

"Fuck you." Only his words registered, not the tone he's said them in. He hadn't been accusing, hadn't even really been angry. Just frustrated…and maybe just a _little_ mad.

"That, Ms Potts, is the plan. Or it would be if you'd quit bitching and get with the program."

His words pushed her past her ability to think clearly. In the tight space she can't work up much momentum, but she still slaps him as hard as she can. It makes her palm hurt, it makes _her_ hurt because she's so damned confused and it feels like he's being flippant and turning her – turning them – into a caricature of what they are.

She would slap him again, she's so out of control, but apparently once is all he's willing to allow. He catches her hand in his and holds it. That's the only way to describe it. He's not hurting her, but there's no way in hell that she's getting her hand back until he decides to let her.

"I know, I know. You're scared. You think I'm not? Big clue for you here, Pepper, this whole grown up, self enlightened, 'make a man of yourself' thing? It's hard as shit. Despite that you do what you've got to. You're fucking scared. I got that. I did my best and I gave you time to deal with it. _Deal with it _being the key words here."

"Screw this," she mutters under her breath before she grabs his face and thrusts her tongue into his still open mouth. She's so damned tired of all the fighting. She can't fight herself and him anymore, not if she wants to keep her sanity. "You've got six hours Stark, and then it's done, you hear me? You've got till dawn, and then I'm through with you."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note:** umm…I was up at 5 AM this morning. I really have nothing to say.

:)

* * *

She's the hottest thing he has ever seen, and the most annoying bitch on the planet. Tony Stark acknowledges both truths with a strange kind of amusement as he leads her out of the bar to the space two blocks down where he's parked his Audi. Only Pepper Potts could go from post-orgasmic limp to furious and argumentative in less than six point two seconds. He knows it's partly his fault; what they'd done inside hadn't been exactly brilliant. He's currently got dust and God knows what else smeared all over the knees of his pants, and he's been hard so long he aches.

Still, he has to wonder with a long suffering kind of patience, is it so unreasonable to hope that two mind blowing orgasms in under five minutes might leave her a little bit pliable?

'Suck it up Stark. Tigers don't change their stripes.' For Pepper that meant she'd no sooner regained her ability to speak than she'd been at him again with the words and the protests and unacceptable reasons. If the last several minutes were any indication, being lovers was going to change only one thing between them – they were going to be at each other like pissed off cats and dogs between mind numbing marathons of sex.

He wants to wrap his hands around her throat almost as much as he wants to touch her. 'Nine to five' and that same supercilious upperward chin tilt accompanied by the same self deception. Like Tony doesn't know that she's fucking terrified and looking for another way to shove him in a box, to talk herself out of what they both know she needs.

He sighs as he unlocks the car door and opens it up for her, hand still on the small of her back or covering the back of her head protectively as she drops into the passenger seat with a disgruntled murmur.

He's weary of all this shit . Like he'd told her back there she's not the only one adjusting to all of this, and she's not the only one with something to lose.

If she thinks she's the only one scared out of her mind here, then she's got another thing coming. He's never loved a woman so much before that it made his teeth hurt. He'll admit that he's never loved a woman at all. He's also never imagined he could want someone who turned out to such an emotional fuckwit – her tendency to overthink the obvious is almost more than he can bear...

'You've got six hours Stark, and then it's done, you hear me? You've got till dawn, and then I'm through with you.'

She can go ahead and tell herself that, but only time will prove if she could put her money where her mouth is. He liked his odds better than hers. He'd always had a better face for poker and insane spontaneity.

'What if you're wrong?' came the insidious whisper. It was that tiny point of reason in his head that sometimes had to play the devil's advocate when he wished it wouldn't. He came around to the driver's side of the door and opened in up, slid in and shoved the keys in the ignition.

If he was wrong – and he wasn't – he'd deal with it later. What he'd done ten minutes ago was still ten million times better than what might have happened if he hadn't. He's reasonably certain that gives him a leg in this time, because she doesn't really want to leave, she's just trying to find another safe little hole that she can crawl into.

'Compartmentalize away.' He doesn't give a shit anymore. If she builds a wall he'll knock it right back down. It's what he's good at for God's sake. The car turns over with a barely audible thrumming noise and he pulls from the parking lot and out into the street.

"Put on your seat belt." Pepper's voice is clipped. He glances over at the passenger seat and has to squirm at the way that she looks, and the ideas it gives him. There's already a hicky forming beneath her right ear, and her hair is in the kind of disarray that makes him want to do something that's illegal by every California traffic code.

"Yes, mother," he intones with just a little bit more snark than is necessary, but he does do as she asks.

The night is hot and the air conditioner is a relief. Pepper seems to be enjoying it too, though she's also beginning to get goosebumps. Her dress doesn't cover nearly enough to be safe for his attention. He reminds himself to watch the road and not just a tempting stretch of thigh.

"Where are we going?" She asks after several long minutes. Her voice is quiet yet ragged, like she's spent the last hour screaming.

"I was taking us back to the mansion. Seemed the best option to me. Unless you wanted to go back to your place...?" There's a question in his voice. This discussing of the details...it felt almost wrong. A romantic hypocrisy.

"Not my house. And not the mansion. This is outside of real life, and that means no intersections." What Pepper was implying of course is the fact that she doesn't want to have to deal with things like the memory of him fucking her senseless on his living room couch.

"We'll get a hotel then. I'm sure the Ritz has a room open."

She shakes her head again, turns to look out the window. "That's too known and public. You never know who we might run into. I don't need the extra paperwork."

He grits his teeth. "Fine. Then I'll look for a Holiday Inn. But we're getting their honeymoon suite."

She winces a little bit at the words, but nods her head in acceptance. Than she reaches down and pulls off the heels she is wearing, leaving one foot propped up in her lap. The action causes her to shift a little, than wince in a manner he can't quite identify. "Did I manage to hurt you?"

He'll be shocked if he did. Still, things got rougher than he'd intended back there, and he has to be sure. If she's actually in pain they are calling it quits and he is taking them home. This little war of theirs can damn well be rescheduled before he'll let her think he'd deliberately physically hurt her.

The look Pepper gives him is a mixture of confusion and something he can't describe. "I have a random cramp, Tony. I'm fine, just a little stiff." She gestures to her left, "There's a Days Inn about ten miles ahead. They're always clean and the hot tub suites are usually pretty reasonable price wise."

He's a multibillionaire and she's worrying about room fees. If she tries to pay him for half he's going to fuck her right where she stands, just to prove she's an idiot. "Works for me, Potts. Do we need to stop somewhere before we get there for any...supplies?"

It's an idiotic question and one he regrets almost immediately. The implication of course is that she's not prepared, which given their situation is ludicrous. She came out to the club tonight to get laid, if she doesn't have condoms for that he is going to kill her on principle.

Her voice is disbelieving. "Are you talking about birth control?"

"If you're fucking random strangers you better believe I am. This isn't a world to judge by pretty faces, Pepper. Not if you want to live very long."

She actually snorts, a loud and breathy snicker. "One, I'm on the pill. Two, you're hardly one to talk. Three, I'm allergic to latex which means specific condoms only, which yes, I happen to carry with me."

He doesn't see a box of them now, and she doesn't have a purse, which means they probably were left in her car where they will do them no good. He doesn't share this insight though, instead he pulls a sheet of paper from his glove box and hands it to her without a word.

She stares at the words at the top of the page in open shock. "You carry around blood test results?!" 'From a week ago apparently.'

His answering grin is genuine, though a little ironic. "I'm a thoughtful kind of guy: call it insurance and a way to get what I want with less aggravation." He notes she's starting to blush and he shakes his head in bemusement. The woman is weird in the most bemusing of ways. He just rubbed her off in the back of a public bar and she didn't blink an eye, but now she's getting shy about test results and condoms. "I hate rubbers and diaphragms, but we can use them if you insist, though as you can see, disease will not be a problem." He rubs the bridge of his nose and shoots her a warning look. "No spermicides though, Potts. The last time I used those I had hives in uncomfortable places for a week."

She blushes even redder, and can't make herself meet his eyes. The hand she has on the passenger side door tightens convulsively, and he thinks for a moment she's going to throw it open and push herself out of the car in some kind of abject surrender. He reaches out for her thigh and squeezes it lightly, amused by the tenderness that's suddenly invaded his voice.

"Breathe now, Pepper. I'm about to see you naked, and vice versa. You can handle us talking about this if you can handle what happened at the club. You're a natural maneater."

"The pill is fine. Though I don't have similar paperwork." Her voice is a little shaky, but it's only growing stronger.

"Good. We go bare then. Which leads us to rules two and three."

Her eyebrow shoots up and she turns to look at him. "_Rules_?" She's a little skeptical, and her eyebrow is nearly to her hairline. He nods unapologetically. "Yes. Three of them. You got three I think it's only fair I get the same number too."

"When did I make rules?" She sounds a little bewildered. He shrugs and pulls into the parking ramp, counting them out on his fingers.

"One: It's over at dawn, Two: no place familiar. That means no place the press or anyone we know might actually see us, which leaves number three. I'm a mathematician Pepper: this should hardly surprise you by now."

She can't dispute him, though she looks like she wants to try. Finally she seems to give up and nod in agreement.

"Fine...if you insist on being so fricking pedantic. Rule one: hotel with a Jacuzzi. Rule two was birth control per mutual agreement...hit me with subject number three?"

"Repeat after me Virginia. The concept of the day is 'safe word.' In your case the phrase in question is going to be 'back off you miserable fucker.' I trust you can remember it?" She rolls her eyes and he shrugs his shoulders as he parks. "Other than that I want your word: we enter and we leave the room together. Only together."

She looks like she's going to protest but he cuts her off mercilessly. This one is non-negotiable, and he's making that clear. "I mean it, Potts – no running off while I'm in the shower. I deserve better than that and so do you." He takes his hand off her knee and opens the door. "If you want to stop you say so and we will, but we handle this like two freaking grown ups, not the kids from One Tree Hill. Now do we have an agreement?"

He doesn't know why, but that actually seems to amuse her. She crosses her arms over her chest. "That's four rules for you, Stark. I only got three – that means I'm entitled to at least one more."

"Fine, let me know when you come up with something. You've got till the door closes and we're both naked to come up with something."

That ends their talking for the rest of the duration. They make it inside in record time, which is pretty impressive, considering the tension that's again started to mount. He's so hard now he can barely walk, and she's begin to shake, though he knows she's trying to hide it. He keeps his hand on her lower back from the car to the service desk. The night clerk is a pimply kid with a set of headphones and a lousy disposition.

Five minutes later, though, they have a card key, and he nudges her onto the elevator that leads up to the second floor.

"I'm not sure I can do this," she whispers to the air. He's reasonably certain she doesn't realize she just said it aloud.

His version of helping is to pin her to the closed elevator door.

She gasps as the metal of the elevator makes contact with the bare skin of her back. Instinctively she arches away from it, only to run immediately into the blaze of heat radiating off of her boss's body. 'I am insane.' It's the only clear thought in her head as she latches onto him with her hands and drags her lips down his neck. The growl that comes out of his mouth is the sexiest thing she's ever heard, and the meaning of insane has changed. She's insane to have ignored this for so long, and that she's out of control and partially ashamed of her behavior seems a fair price to pay for her stupidity. If she'd wanted gentle and tender, apparently she should have acted months ago.

His hands are on her back. They're rough with calluses and feel bigger than they have any right to. They slide under the material of her dress in search of more skin and she retaliates by yanking the front of his shirt out of his waistband. His head is resting on her shoulder; he's breathing hard and erratically in response to the play of her fingertips over the tight skin of his belly. "Pepper…" She turns her head to bite and nip at the tender skin behind his ear. His hands tighten almost painfully around her waist and she doesn't mourn the loss of gentle and tender. Those two had their place, but more often than not it wasn't in their professional relationship. Tony was an ass and she was more than used to busting his balls to keep him on track.

God, she didn't even know how many days out of the first year she'd worked for him had passed without some sort of fight between them. There hadn't been many.

The elevator stops and they both nearly fall to the floor when the doors open behind her. But his hands are there, and she's caught, and he pulls her upright so that their bodies are flush. He can undoubtedly feel her nipples against his chest and she can feel the minute vibration of his chest piece against hers. They stand motionless in the hallway for a long minute, but then he's pulling her down the hall to the door of their room and hustling her inside.

He turns to close the door. She turns and slams him against it.

Pepper doesn't have enough patience left to undo the buttons of his shirt, but neither is she so lost that she can't be practical: ripping it open will just make for a display tomorrow morning and she knows she's not ready for that.

She pulls his shirt over his head, grateful that he'd already had the top couple buttons undone and that he'd rolled up his sleeves instead of buttoning them. Her lips pick up where she'd left off. Starting at the base of his neck she trails kisses down his chest until she's interrupted by the taste of metal on her lips. Then, despite urgency, despite need, she finds it in herself to be gentle after all.

"Pepper –" She takes his lips in a soft kiss, cutting off the uncertainty she'd heard in his voice. Her hand covers the reactor, his hand covering hers almost immediately after. He kisses her like he's suddenly shy and she can't stand his vulnerability. The Tony Stark she knows is _not _vulnerable_._ Yes, he's capable of being that way but he's never vulnerable in her presence because…

She doesn't bother to think why he's never vulnerable because it takes her down paths that she only explores in the dead of the night. She won't admit it's because she loves him and he knows it, and so he trusts her never to hurt him.

And yet, he is shy.

"Mr. Stark…" she purrs against his lips as she presses closer to his chest. "I do believe I have you trembling with lust."

She can feel him leer as he turns so that _she's_ pressed up against the door. "Nonsense, Ms. Potts. Superheroes don't _tremble._" He lifts her just enough to wedge his hips between her thighs and she takes the invitation to wrap her legs around him. "Though I might consider an exception in your case." He sounds breathless.

"I'll be gentle," she assures him as she arches her back and presses firmly against the erection she can feel against her belly.

"Like hell you will."

"Like hell," she agrees, a little breathless herself as he starts thrusting against her. His hand is behind her neck, fumbling for the hooks holding up her dress. She reaches back to help him.

"I am a grown man, Ms. Potts. I can manage on my own."

"Maybe if your hands weren't trembling. Would you let me do my job and give you a hand?"

His laugh is strained but genuine. "By all means, Ms Potts."

She pushes his hands out of her way and unhooks the halter. Tony wastes no time pulling the top down and moving his hands from her back to her chest.

"Oh, god."

"Who's trembling now, Ms. Potts?" he murmurs against her collarbone, but she's too busy focusing on the sensation of his hands against her skin to pay much attention to the wicked heat in his voice.

She has no answer. She only threads her fingers through his hair and forces his mouth to do something other than make smart remarks.

She looses track of things after that. At some point he puts her down because she knows that her legs are wobbly, and eventually she pulls his head up and attacks his mouth. She knows they've moved because suddenly she's on her back on a bed, her dress is gone, and her hands are trapped between them as they both work to get his pants off.

"Damn it, ow! I thought you were supposed to be giving me a hand, Potts. Ohhh…."

Pepper takes advantage of his distraction to push his hands out of her way and slip her hands inside the tight casing of his leather pants. She works them over his hips before giving him more of a hand than he was prepared for.

"Pepper…Pepper, wait…" She smiles as his protests die off.

"Is this everything, Mr. Stark?"

"Pepper…" His growl is all the warning she gets before he's on top of her, all heat and muscle and male desperation. She's a little surprised at first but she gathers her wits quickly. She braces herself against his shoulders and rolls them. Her position of power lasts just long enough for her to catch her breath before he flips them.

She flips them the other way with the same results.

"Tony!"

"Yes."

He's there, and he's serious, and no longer playing and she's fed up because this is so typical. _"Back…off_,Stark."

"That is not the safe word, Potts." He rests his forehead against her breasts anyway. "Pepper…"

"Rule four, Tony. I'm on top."

"That's one rule I can't agree to."

"Too bad." She flips them one last time and straddles him. Somehow during the scuffle his pants have slipped down all the way and he bucks up against her. For once she's riding her lust down at the same time she's riding him and she tightens her knees around his hips. "I'm on top."

She adjusts her hips before he has a chance to argue further. His head kicks back and she watches the tendons in his throat bulge. Her own throat is clinching and she has to open her mouth to drag enough oxygen down into her lungs. Shock is just as powerful as the feeling of being filled, and it makes no sense. None. It shouldn't be a surprise to find herself here. It shouldn't be a surprise to find herself naked except for her stockings and garters on top of her equally naked boss. It shouldn't be a surprise to feel him inside of her. But it is.

Her weight shifts so that she's no longer pinning him as she tries to sort through it all.

"Nonono." Tony's hands grip her hips and hold her in place. His voice is strained, deeper than she can ever remember it being. "You wanted to be on top. It's a little late to change your mind. No chickening out." And he lifts her up a few inches, pulling gasps from both of them, before allowing her to settle back down on him.

"Tony…"

One hand keeps her in place and the other pulls her down to kiss him. His lips are persuasive, just a little desperate but not trying to overwhelm. She doesn't know how he _always_ knows. How he always knows just when her out of control emotions tip the balance. But she kisses him back, willing herself to let go of everything but the taste and feel of him. There are no repercussions in this moment.

Slowly she begins to move over him, first with hesitance and then with more control. She absorbs his gasps and moans with her mouth and it no longer matters that he's her boss. He's making no demands, he steals no control. She rules in this moment, she is in control, and it's her kisses that become demanding. Her hands that dig into his shoulders as she braces herself to move with more force.

In the end it's her name he calls, her body that accepts his surrender with a shudder and a rush of heat.

In the end, she is still the one who's a little surprised to be looking into the unfocused eyes of Tony Stark.

She wonders just what it is that she's done.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **4persephone and I have way too much fun writing these chapters. (insert evil grin)

* * *

He's completely relaxed under her at the moment, his eyes are closed and his breath is steady. Pepper bites her lip hard enough to hurt and carefully, carefully, shifts her weight off his body and onto first the bed and then the floor. The act leaves her body feeling strange, kind of…disconnected. Which fits quite nicely with the same feeling as it builds in her mind.

"Pep?" He is not asleep, though he must be near to it. His frown usually forms much quicker than it has at present. He opens his eyes carefully. Regards her with what looks a lot like resignation. "Where are you going? This bed is damn cold in here without you."

That's so typical of him; consideration of his comfort and his expectancy that she'll take care of it. How is it that he's still the Tony she knows but she's not who she knows herself to be? It's silly. It's ridiculous. And it's true nonetheless.

"I just...I need a minute." Needs a chance to collect herself, to put herself back together so that he won't worry. Because that's how they work.

"A minute is fine. Five minutes even." He sighs a little as he shifts against the sheets. "Could probably use it myself."

"Oh. Right. I'll, um...I'll just be a minute." Completely unaware that she's repeating herself, Pepper turns and makes for the bathroom, which is the only escape she can take without rousing his immediate disapproval. And it's very important not to draw his attention too closely - she's too splintered apart to deal with close scrutiny right now.

She doesn't see the man she leaves behind her when she closes the door. Doesn't see the way he pushes himself up wearily and brings his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He gets up from the mattress and heads for the wet bar, avoiding the small bottle of vodka. Instead he takes out two chilled bottles of water and opens one up for himself, than sets the other one down on her side of the bed.

Then he sits back down in a chair by the window as he tries to give her the space which she says she needs.

Inside the bathroom the floor is cold under her feet, the light's too bright and hurts her eyes but she forces herself to look in the mirror anyway. Her hair is a mess, the result of Tony's fingers running through it as if he couldn't get enough. Her lips are swollen and pink and there are hickies on her neck, and on her collar. Her breasts and the sides of her neck are pink in places from the burn of his goatee against her skin. She looks like a woman who's been satisfied to the point of bliss, and than probably back again.

Her eyes tell another story. They are wide open in a flushed face. Her eyes scream of emotional discomfort, of the way her body feels strange, kind of…disjointed…without the heat of his body grounding her to the place where she is. Strange. It's so strange, in a way. In the past she's always been his tether to the outside world, the one grounding him in mundane reality. And now she wants to go to him for the same service, and that scares her because if he says yes then everything about who they are together will have to be redefined.

'It's only a few more hours, right?' She splashes some water onto her face, then rubs the back of her neck with her wet hand. All she has to do is hold on for a few more hours and then the sun will rise and like the breaking of Cinderella's spell they'll be back to being who they've been and she'll be on solid ground once more.

Once she's on solid ground, then she can begin the messy process of sorting through all of this in her mind. Right now there's nothing for it but to let the waves take her where they will.

'I can do this,' she assures herself as she dries her face on a towel. 'I can do this,' she repeats as she consciously works on smoothing the wrinkles out of her brow and the rawness from her eyes. 'I can do this.' It is not entirely a lie.

And despite the fact she can do this, she takes one of the soft terry cloth robes off the hook on the back of the door and pulls it around her because clothes have always been one of her most effective shields between her unruly self and the rest of the world.

She opens the door and tries not to be surprised when she doesn't find Tony waiting for her on the threshold. She ventures farther into the room, trying not to recreate every time she's been the one who found a woman wandering around without sufficient clothing while Tony has relocated.

She is not abandoned no matter what kind of dark whispers are filling her mind.

When she does find him it's in a chair, near the table by the window. It's not so much that he's that hard to spot, as that he's just draped right now in shadow. He's sitting in a pale strip of moonlight looking out into the courtyard below them as he waits for him to come and speak what's on her mind.

"There's a water on the bed if you need it," he informs her softly. He raises his own clear seltzer to his lips and takes a careful sip. His face turns toward her and what he looks like, in that moment, is a man several decades older than he actually is.

'Maybe six hours was too large a chunk of time.' It's too long to sit here and stare at each other in silence. For want of anything better to do, Pepper goes over to the bed and picks up the bottle of water he's left for her on the mattress. She doesn't open it, just holds it as she sits down and tucks her feet up under her. The glass is green, cold, starting to grow damp with condensation.

The bottle is easier to look at than Tony, easier to concentrate on than the silence she hates but doesn't know how to break. This isn't them. This isn't their silences. But she doesn't know who _they_ are anymore, doesn't know if she should even try. 'None of this is permanent, is it?'

"Stop it, Pepper." His voice is quiet. "I don't know whatever you're thinking that makes you look like I just beat you, but I'm begging you to stop it."

Her eyes shoot to his for too brief a moment before falling back into her lap. "You're here." She doesn't explain further than that, knows she doesn't need to. What she does is wish that she could take the words back because she hadn't even admitted to herself that part of her retreat had been an offer for him to leave without her having to watch...or pretend to sleep through his exit.

He studies her a long hard moment like he can literally read her thoughts, and then his shoulders visibly slump as he takes another sip of his water before speaking again. "My God, I don't know why you even bother to want me, if I'm that big of a bastard in your eyes. I mean honestly, Potts, what's the point of punishing yourself that way?"

She turns the bottle in her hands, over and over and over... She takes a deep breath...lets it out. Again. A third time. Risks everything.

"Tony, it wasn't...intentional. It wasn't me _thinking_. It's just...my purpose in your life is to make your life easier. Half the things I do for you are based on intuition, from trying to anticipate what you're going to want from me from moment to moment. And I'm good at it." Or at least she believes she is.

"Good at it?" His voice cracks in a kind of hazy disbelief. "Pepper, you're without doubt the most efficient person I've ever met and if you left my schedule would probably never recover. If you really want to help me, though, than I suggest you start by actually learning to see me." He takes anther careful gulp of water, than raises his head and looks her directly in the eyes. "Because frankly I don't know who's deserving of the greater amount of self contempt at this point. You are sleeping with a man who you obviously don't trust, and I am in totally in love with a woman who obviously doesn't know who I am."

The bottle falls out of her hands and rolls into her lap. Her sharp intake of breath is audible in the still room, and this time when her eyes jump to his they stay locked there for several long moments. He breaks eye contact first then, looking back down at the table. She doesn't say anything, there's not a single reply that forces its way through the wall of shock in her mind. She swallows hard, ends up choking on her own spit and it's her undignified coughing that shatters the moment.

He looks for a moment like he wants to rise - to go and help, but then she sees him physically stop himself and take another sip before her speaks again.

"Tell me something, Pepper: what is it going to take to wash all this accumulated crap off my hands? To do enough penance that I'm forgiven and people will finally start to see me?" His voice cracks. "Because I'm trying...but it's like the stuff just keeps spreading until I can barely remember what I look like anymore."

"What crap?' she asks, her voice a little rough. She's dazed, unsure of what matter to tackle first: his impromptu declaration - does he make any other kind? - or the undercurrent of bile in his tone. She figures the bile might be easier to handle.

The despair that he spits back at her threatens to bring them both to their knees.

He gives himself no quarter. "Being a murderer. Being an arrogant asshole. Being the guy whose business partner used his inherent selfishness and irresponsibility to screw over thousands of people." His voice breaks on his last words, "Being anything and everything but what I should have been, Howard Starks's goddamn son."

"Stop it!" There's a bite to her tone that's never been there before, and she knows why it's there. She's appalled. She's horrified. She's revolted by the funhouse mirror image of himself he's holding up and she's absolutely certain that he believes in that image more than he believes in anything else. Maybe even more than he believes in her.

He's up and out of the chair then, like he simply can't bear to be still any longer. "Stop _what_, Pepper - telling the god-damn truth?! I _can't_. There is nothing left of me but that because the only people who ever knew who I am...who I _should have been_ are my parents, and both of them are _dead_!" For a brief moment she hates him, hates him fiercely because of what she has to do. He's breaking her heart and for that she hates herself.

"What about me?" And there's no keeping the pain out of her voice, no keeping out the waiting edge of rejection. She just admitted that knowing him inside and out is her job. Does she not matter as someone who knows him?

"I thought you might," His words are defeated, "But right now I'm not even sure you see yourself clearly anymore – there's too much fear." He shakes his head, "I love you, Pepper, _I do_, but all you seem to see is that crap that's coating me just like everyone else. No wonder all you seem to do is run."

"Maybe I don't see myself clearly," she whispers. "But _I see you_." As an argument it's weak, but she's still tallying his marks against himself, her mind still racing to connect the dots and find the answers. Because she doesn't have his mind, it predictably takes too long.

He raises his head from his bottle and there are god-damn tears on his cheeks. He shakes his head and heads for the door at a breakneck speed. "Safe word, Pepper. I just can't do this anymore. It's time for me to leave."

"You love me." It's the only thing she can think to say to even slow him down. "And you promised me six hours." He pauses, caught in the act of bending down for his pants. "And I'm not ready to leave yet." She sees the tension in his shoulders, the tightly contained misery in his spine. He won't stay, she knows that. Can see that. It's her job, after all to know him better than he knows himself. "I'm not ready to leave you yet," she amends softly. "If we're walking out the door, we do it together. Right?"

He sighs and turns around so he can face her. "Pepper, you don't even like me. You don't know me well enough to claim that much, and it is only a silly game of sorts that neither of us can win. I appreciate that you feel you've somehow done something wrong, but I'm the one who turned out to basically be the whore." He pulls on his pants and steps into his shoes. Walks over and kisses her on the forehead, before reaching down to lift the palm of her dangling hand. "I'm going to be out of town for a few days...I want to check the updates on the suit. Your job is still yours for as long as you want it. That's precondition number five," he says as he puts the keys to the Audi in her hand and folds her fingers around them.

His mistake is coming close enough for her to physically reach him. Well, technically his first mistake was enrolling her without her consent in a women's self defense class a few months after she started working for him when he realized what late hours she was willing to keep.

She grabs his wrist and flips him onto the bed hard enough that his weight bounces her up and almost off it. She has to scramble to regain her position before he can regain his wits, but she manages. She is whole in the face of his weakness, and she is once more in charge. "Which one of us said we were going to be handling this like two freaking grown-ups?" she demands.

"I am!" He fights for his freedom, as much as he can do so without risking he'll hurt her. In the end that means she can pin him with his back to the bed. "It's called being smart enough to know your limits and cut your losses, Potts! Now fucking get off my chest!"

"God, Tony. You are such a freaking idealist!" she yells at him. "Get over it!" He looks in that moment like he can't decide whether he would rather kiss or kill her. Probably both. He does neither though, going limp and staring sightlessly at the wall over her shoulder.

She situates herself more comfortably on his chest and settles in for the long haul. She knows this attitude. For all that she admires Tony's brilliance, she's also willing to admit he's a bit manic/depressive at times. "Tony Stark, you are an asshole," she says again, just to ensure he's listening to her.

"That's already been established," is his calm reply. "At least I've never tried to pretend that my world isn't totally fucked up. You get what you see." There's a not so subtle knife in the gut intended with that. More of his brutal form of honesty again.

She drums her fingers on his arc reactor. "You're also kinda of a whore," she admits after a moment.

His laughter is bitter. "Yes, and the worse possible kind. I'm the one who keeps shelling out my money." He shifts slightly underneath her, forcing her to readjust her balance, but when he does, he seems to be breathing more deeply. "At least I never tried to pretend I was anything but what I am though. Anybody who claims I promised them roses doesn't know the first thing about me."

It's the first time he's ever addressed his dating habits in her hearing, and the first time, perhaps, that he's ever given any opinion of the woman he'd chosen to keep company with. She'd never considered he might use them in the same way some people use anesthetic.

Where does a man go when he has nowhere to turn? Was what he'd done before Afghanistan any worse than a life in his basement where he touched nothing or no one but his machines and his cars? The cars were really the only embodiment of his father he had left.

Suddenly the hours…no, months he's spent obsessing over that hotrod make a painful kind of sense.

Pepper holds on to that insight. "You're self-centered," she sighs, as if this was only a minor character flaw. "If you weren't, you might have realized by now that there's blame to go around. I'm no slouch, Tony. I know Stark Industries as well as you do. Obadiah got past _me_. Not you, Stark. It's my job to oversee the shipping and mailing reports." She should have seen it before she did.

"Obadiah used me for years, Pepper. From the very beginning. He kept me distracted and pliable and I was irresponsible enough to let him while he used my name to hurt hundreds of people. Hell, he even took me to my first whorehouse at age fifteen...you weren't even out of middle school then. How is any of that your fault?" He draws a deep breath, than blows it out. "And your job was - _is_, to manage my office, not the entire inventory of Stark Industries shipping."

"Your office is where all those reports end up, Tony. And I read every single one. _All_ of them. Do you understand me? How much time do you honestly think it takes me to answer your e-mail and get your coffee? What is it that you think I actually do for you?"

He smiles in spite of himself. "The work of at least six people you little anal retentive twit. And you do it alone because you start to steam out the top of your head or throw things when I as much as dare suggest you might need extra help"

He shakes his head a little in amusement before speaking at a whisper. "It's one of the reasons I thought that you actually lo...well you're a worse dog in the manger than I am. You've never liked to share me."

"You're right. I should probably work on that." Her tone implies she plans to do no such thing. "Know what really pisses me off? Besides my very presence being ignored?"

"Tuna fish sandwiches with lemon and not pickles." Is his reply, though he is beginning, _just_ beginning to form a very sly smile around the corners of his mouth

"Close. What really drives me around the bend is seeing the man I love hurt."

He stiffens like somebody's hit him in the side with a massive cattle prod. His eyes involuntarily rise to hers and hold for long moments. Then in a move she could have seen in the mirror not ten minutes ago, his gaze drops again and he goes back to staring at the wall.

"Mmmm...see, this is why we work. One of us takes a step forward, the other takes a step back...No wonder we always know where we are. We're always in the same place. Tony..." His shirt is unbuttoned and she runs a finger around the rim of his chest piece. "You trust me with your life. Or was that a one time mandatory thing?"

He shudders and the rising budge of heat beneath her bottom is about the most precise answer she was going to get. He may still be upset, but his body recognizes and trusts her. It's a start at least. She shifts, smiling a little when he can't quite contain a groan, but she hadn't missed his comment that he'd been to a whorehouse at the tender age of fifteen.

It explains so much about his screwed up relationships with women. She wonders if he's ever been on a real date in all his life. She moves her weight to his lower chest. Her knees are tucked in tight to his armpits, and she doesn't think he's even aware of how his fingers are trailing up and down her calves. He just needs to touch, and she's smart enough to let him.

"I really am going to have to insist on eye contact if you're going to make me do this, Stark. I'd like some acknowledgement of the effort it takes."

He raises his eyes at the fear she doesn't completely manage to keep out of her voice. His gaze is as clear as she's thus far seen.

"Thank you." She sighs deeply and then tugs at the neck of her robe when he's immediately distracted. "Perhaps this would work better if I tied you to a chair," she muttered. Her legs were getting sore.

"Not my kink, Potts." He informs her softly, though the twitch underneath her indicates something very different.

"Mmm-hmm. We'll talk about that later. Do you want to know how long I've known you've loved me?"

"I'm guessing about ten and a half minutes." He squirms under her weight. "Which proves as I said that you don't know me as well as you think. You never did. " He pauses, "Well that and that, like I said, you're an overly self conscious little shit who can't see what's right in front of her face."

She smiles. "You're wrong. I've known since my last birthday." She waits for his reaction, knowing that whatever form it takes, it probably won't go well.

"Excuse me?" He couldn't have looked more confused if she'd told him Jarvis was currently in outer space.

"Tony..." He's back, he's looking at her out of eyes she recognizes, and she fights not to take a step back now that he's on the level with her. "You wanted to know what I'd gotten myself from you. You _never_ want to know that. And your eyes were so soft..." She reaches out and brushes the side of his face, shrugs. "And I decided that..." This is the part that turns her so ugly. "I decided that if you could love me, and still bring a woman home with you, then I wasn't going to fight for you. I gave up on you because I didn't want to start a war I might not win. Because losing would be losing everything, including dignity." She shakes her head, "I won't pretend that didn't factor into my decision, because it did. But it also would have meant the end of my employment with you and I figured that at least was worth something." She laughs, and it's not a pretty sound. "And then not twenty-four hours later, I got that call from Rhodey, and –"

She never gets to finish the sentence.

For the first time since she's pinned him, he actually moves to overpower her; in this case it's to lift her bodily until he's upright, and she's basically straddling his lap while he wraps her in a bear hug. "I'm sorry," His whispers into her hair. "I just had a lot of shit and growing up to do then. It's been a lot to try and process."

"Like it was any easier to point out than to listen to it be pointed out," she shoots back as she cautiously wraps her arms around him. She can't believe he's being so easy going about this. All night he's been raving about her being a coward, and when she finally admits the true depths of her cowardice, he hugs her in response?

Maybe he's right. Maybe she doesn't know him half as well as she thinks she does. Maybe she only recognizes the surface reactions and not their causes after all.

"I don't _care_ if you're perfect." His voice is vehement. She has to admit it's the strongest she's ever heard him speak. "I care if you try and hurt yourself by lying to us both. It has to stop, Pepper, or we're both going to break." His hand cups her chin and his eye burn fire as he stares at her through watery eyes. "That's why I did what I did tonight. Because I couldn't watch you dive into shit deliberately if I could stop it. We," he chokes. "There's enough to be ashamed of, in both our lives, now already."

"You came back different," she whispers, her eyes well and truly caught. "You came back with all that...irresponsibility stripped away. You've always been hard to manage, Tony, but after you came back I hard a hard time justifying why you _needed_ to be. I told myself it was temporary, but I don't believe it anymore." She couldn't pretend to just be his PA. "_And I don't know how to do this._"

He brushes his lips across hers so lightly she could almost swear they never touch. It's a gesture meant to scold and simultaneously comfort. "You 'do this' Potts, by putting down the clipboard and winging it. The concept is known as spontaneity."

"I don't like being out of control." She might as well go for broke.

He kisses her again, firmer this time, and unapologetic. "Yeah I kind of get that. Problem is, creativity...passion...belief…. It all requires that you let go." He reaches down and lifts her hands to his mouth, placing an open kiss on the same palm he'd dropped his keys in. "You have to get out of the nest if you're going to fly. Otherwise you're just stuck forever in a damn dying tree."

"I'm scared," she admits on a whisper. If they can cover his dirty laundry, hers is only fair.

"You are not as scared as you are gutsy. Look who you went and fell in love with, Pepper, and give yourself some credit. Look what you did to Obadiah in that factory for no other reason than you were the only one there was who could do it and he pissed you off." He pushes her robe back and off her shoulders, skims his hands up her bare arms and squeezes her shoulders. "If you can backflip me onto this bed you can handle your fear. You can more than handle it." He grins, "Hell, I'll even do my part and help keep you in a state of constant aggravation if you like. It's how you thrive best anyway."

"I don't like being pissed off at you. It makes me feel bad," she grumbles. "Especially since I pushed the damn button because you pissed me off."

He smirks "What can I say, Potts, you're an explosive personality."

"I'm never almost killing you again, I hope you realize that. I don't care what the consequences are, we are _never_ doing that again."

"Pepper what are the odds we'll ever _be_ in that situation again? I mean do you really want me to calculate the math based probabilities?"

"That any odds exist at all are too many," she snaps in reply.

He sighs again, bends over to trail a gentle string of kiss from the top of her neck by her ear all the way down her collarbone. "Have you ever considered, Pepper, that you may be letting your fear of living dangerously stop you from living any kind of life at all?"

"This from the man who just about ran out the door on me after I suggested that previous behavioral patterns suggested that he might run out the door on me." Her voice is clear and a little wry.

He pauses a moment after that comment, then buries his face in the side of her neck and lets out a strangled gasp, then he's laughing hysterically.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: **well, here it is, the end of the story for the time being. However, do not be dismayed. 4persophone and I have started a new collaboration, which should be appearing soon. :)

Enjoy.

* * *

He laughs till he hurts. He laughs _because_ it hurts. He laughs because she's there in his lap and she's speaking the truth, as ironic as it might seem. He laughs because for the first time in his life he might have actually managed to get something that's this important right.

The woman in his arms is strangely silent. He wants to raise his hands to her breasts but they are "having a moment" and that might be inappropriate and he doesn't want to fuck it up. Of course for some reason he wants to inexplicably cry. He's guesses that that proves he's more than a little fucked up.

He can feel her entire body expand and relax against his chest as she sighs out deeply. "We were pretty much living in each other's pockets already, you know," she informs him as she runs her fingers through his hair. Given the absent look in her eyes he's guessing it's a thoughtless motion and yet an incredibly meaningful one just the same. "At least you spend time in your garage, so I suppose I'll get breaks now and then." Still, he knows she's wondering how much all of this is going to change their lives.

"We've been lovers for months now, Pepper," he informs her a little ironically. "In my mind all this changes is the fact that I intend to leer openly in private, instead of always having to cover my damn hard-on."

That earns him a smack to the back of the head, though it's not a particularly hard one. "You are such a pig," she sighs, teasing him a bit as she smoothes back the hair she's just ruffled. "You're going to be absolutely impossible, aren't you?" She asks almost whimsically. He's hard underneath her, and she can feel the way his hands are tensing and relaxing against her sides but she forces herself not to react.

'Women come too easily to Tony.' Not that she's the exception, really but still, a girl has a right to be wooed, doesn't she?

He finally gives up and cups her breasts in his hands, running his thumbs down along the crease near her armpits, watching in fascination as she shudders.

"Hey for the record, I'm only a half pig. I'm _trying_ to let us have a moment here, but you're kind of distracting. It's not my fault you're the most god-damn beautiful thing that I think I've ever seen."

"Really..." She links her hands behind his neck and leans in to start nibbling on his jaw. His skin is rough with stubble and for a moment she rubs her cheek against his face. "You really love me." It is a statement of amazement that in no way doubts her worth. Instead it sounds like she's amazed that he'd finally recognized the fact.

"No shit, Sherlock." He leans in to kiss her, letting his tongue snake out to trace the line of her bottom lip. His right hand plucks at her left nipple, slowly, watching her face to see how much he can get away with.

'Quite a bit, apparently,' judging by the way her tongue chases his own back into his mouth. The woman had far too much of a 'tops' disposition, if you ask him sometimes.

He shifts uneasily beneath her, groaning in discomfort, and curses himself for picking this particular set of pants. He's going to have to push her off him just to get himself free, and he's loathe to move and give her that much advantage.

Pepper, predictably, seems to read all these thoughts in his eyes, because a wicked sort of grin is taking over her perfect features. "Tell me when you figured it out and I'll give you a hand again," she offers with just a twinge of evil delight.

'It serves him right to be uncomfortable after what he'd been about to do.' After all it hadn't been her who had been dumb enough to try leaving.

He slaps her hands and shifts her off his lap before he shifts to the side of the bed, "I can get myself out this time...thank you very much. After last time I'm not inclined to trust you to help with ambushing me."

She looks a little bit disappointed, but at least she acquiesces. He gains his feet with a single shove upward, and then he's reaching for his fly. She watches, with what can only be described as a predatory level of interest, and he almost misses the next question she asks."

"So when did you figure it out? I'd really like to know."

"Figure out what? You're going to have to be a little more specific, I'm kind of distracted at the moment."

Her grin is wicked as she watches him shimmy out of his pants, but her curiosity when she asks again is sincere.

"When did you figure out that you were in love with me?" She's staring at his waist, but it's more because she's still a little uncomfortable talking about these things than anything else. That, and though he knows she'd deny it, she's the most naturally curious person he's ever met.

He shucks his pants and tosses them to the floor, sighing in relief as his erection pops upright in position, free of the prison it had been in.

She licks her lips and he has to clench his fists to not give up on answering any question.

"I figured out I loved you when they shoved my head under water." He realizes a moment after he's said it that that might not have been the best way to put it, even if it was the truth. He jerks his eyes to her face and prays she doesn't freak out completely.

She's not overreacting, but she has to look away from him to keep a level head. They don't talk about Afghanistan. Hell, they barely even talk about the arc reactor. In fact, they don't talk much about anything that has any connection with him being Iron Man.

His erection deflates a little as he reaches forward to cup a soothing hand to her face.

"So...the whole life passing before your eyes thing is true? Or...?" She leans into the touch and tries to keep her voice casual, though she doesn't manage it completely.

He shakes his head. "Just your face. Your voice. I considered it something of an epiphany."

Her eyes rise to his face, the worst of the shock finally passing. She searches his features carefully, though he's not sure what she's looking for. He tries to keep from being overwhelmed by the intensity of it, but the depth of her looking makes him shiver just a little.

"You know, I thought you were going to tell me that day we switched your chest piece." She smiles as she reaches out and raps her knuckles on the metal surface.

He shakes his head and reaches out his hand. "No, Potts. That's when I pretty much confirmed to myself in my head that you were in love with _me_."

He then he takes her free hand and the one she just tapped him with, tugging her gently in a silent kind of order. He waits until she climbs off the bed to stand in front of him, before he kisses her again – methodically and wetly.

When she's limp from this exchange of eager tongues, he turns her around so she's standing facing away from him. The position means that he can reach around her front with both his hands, which pleases him greatly. She leans back against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She looks like she finds it a quite comfortable position.

"I guess mounting it gave me away, did it? Because I'm pretty sure I wasn't thinking anything romantic while my hand was actually in your chest. That was utterly disgusting, by the way." He chuckles and wraps his arms around her front to cup her breasts.

"You only babble when you're vulnerable, Pepper, all I had to do was figure out why. The dance we shared was a pretty clear hint...I'm a genius remember?" His right hand traces her flank from the edge of her shoulder all the way to her hip. When he gets to waist level he wraps his other arm around her middle to hold her in place. Then he pushes his thigh between her own to spread her open to his touch.

"I don't..._babble_." She protests. Her eyes flutter closed and she squirms a little in his grasp as his fingers tease her sleek belly.

She wants to turn – he can sense it in her body language. In the way her fists clasp in impatient fists before she tries to spin and face him. His arms tighten around her in warning. She moves experimentally and is met with the same reaction.

He chuckles low in his throat. "There's no up or down here, Pepper. We're _vertical_. Which means I get to lead for once. Such novelty…"

He finds her clit and circles it then, maddeningly light. Yes he intends to give her exactly what she wants, but he doesn't mean to hurry.

"This time," she warns him, as his hands reach her wet folds. He spreads her open with his left hand and dives in with his other. He feels it then as she tries to relax - tries to let go of the thoughts still racing through her head.

He lets his touch give silent reassurance as they stroke the core of her body. He's not running, he won't let her run; she'll have plenty of time to get her questions answered later.

He slips one finger into her heat and captures the groan it causes with his mouth.

Then he commences a silent conquest of her body.

This dance is familiar. He's done it a thousand times before. It's something about his makeup which he's never felt the need to apologize for, and that goes doubly now. He'll never understand why he finds this process almost more satisfying than the act of coming, but he loves pushing the barriers and seeing this side of a woman – spread bare of pretense, diluted to their raw purity.

With Pepper it's something more elemental. He's learning her nature. He wants to know...will draw it out until she's finally begging.

It's not just about watching her fall, it's about being the one to catch her when she finally glides back down to reality.

"Tony..." Her hands move to his, one wrapping around the arm at her waist and the other around the wrist of the hand between her thighs. Her grip is tight, but in no way controlling. Her breath is shallow but steady, as if she's willing to actually accept what he's offering and not fight for more. The only sign of impatience she shows is how she turns her head towards him with a little grimace, "You're such a god-damn tease!"

He makes her hover there at least another half hour, till her limbs are shaking, then he lifts her up and turns her around in a single fluid motion.

"Oh..._fuck_." Pepper buries her face in his neck and holds on tight. He settles her on top of him with one long, slick slide.

She comes, then almost immediately, before he begins the climb once again.

When Tony collapses back onto the bed, Pepper stays where she is. She likes the feeling of him under her, of his arms around her, of her head moving up and down with the motion of his chest. Likes feeling him inside her after the fact because she's certain she's the only woman he's allowed to lay on top of him once passion is spent.

She shifts so that she can kiss his shoulder, and then she's lapping at the sweat that coats his body. His skin is smooth under her tongue except for the occasional scar. She doesn't know where the scars came from, just that they're there. Part of him. Imperfection in an otherwise smooth plane. Kinda like his personality. Smooth at a distance but covered in scars...some of them small, some as glaringly obvious as the reactor in his chest.

"You're hell on my stamina, Potts. I'm going to have to find a way around that." His voice is a low purr of contentment.

She snickers against his shoulder, "Well...it's not unheard of for doctors to prescribe things for problems like that, Mr. Stark..."

His eyes pop open and he takes in her smirk, "You do realize I'm probably going to spank you for that comment when I can move again, don't you?"

"You wouldn't." It's nothing short of a dare.

"Watch me." And he's flipping them even before she can even get out a squeak.

Two hours later he's lying on his back beside her. There's two more bottles of water on the bed stand, and a half empty jar of macadamia nuts, which he's been scavenging his way through. The clock beside the bed reads 4:47, and he's become uncharacteristically quiet as the hour progresses.

Pepper's pressed against his side, her fingers moving idly against his hip. She's drowsy, content and boneless. He really knew his work apparently. Out of her many fantasies of Tony she never dared let things go this far. The quiet intimacy of laying next to each other is a pleasure she hadn't looked for.

"So when did you know, Pepper?" His voice is strangely soft.

"Know?" She yawns and tries to focus her usually clear mind with only moderate success. "When did I know that I loved you?"

"You got to hear my side, it seems only fair. I'd also like you to lie and tell me your immediate reaction wasn't to go out and get drunk. Something comforting like that…"

"My immediate reaction was to quit. But then I realized either you were completely oblivious to me or I was much better at hiding it than I felt I was."

He goes still at that admission. Involuntarily closes his eyes. Cracks one and speaks through pained lips. "Yes, well I think we've already established I've never been the best at noticing what I should see."

She lightly smacks his hip, "Are you going to get all angsty on me, again? Because if you are then I'm not going to be able to tell you when I fell in love with you."

He forces himself to relax and nods his acceptance. "I'll hold off on the nervous breakdown, yes. Please just continue."

Because she's not sure if he's kidding about the nervous breakdown or not she wraps her arms around him and then entwines one thigh around his for good measure.

"You probably don't, but I'll ask if you remember that night you showed up blindingly drunk on my doorstep anyway."

He blinks. "I showed up _where_?" He isn't sure he's hearing her correctly

"On my doorstep, soaking wet - I never got an explanation for that out of you - and you were so drunk you fell on your ass when I opened my door."

He shakes his head in bewilderment. "When was this exactly? Month and year, Potts, if I need to try and dig it out of my memory..."

For a moment Pepper wants to lie. She wants to protect him. Because she knows that as soon as she tells him the truth he's going to recognize the date and she might not be able to salvage this. But in the end she can't lie about something this important.

"May 5th, 2005. It was mid afternoon."

He closes his eyes again, and his jaw wobbles a little. "The anniversary of my parents' car crash." He mutters after a moment.

She doesn't bother confirming. "You sat there, on my front porch, and you just looked up at me. You didn't try to explain anything, didn't ask for anything. You just _sat_ there and looked at me like I was the only thing between you and a unchambered bullet. I hadn't realized until then how much you'd come to depend on me."

He looks relieved. More relieved than she really understands. She's puzzled by his expression, but finishes her story nonetheless. "I went to pull you up, and I could barely get you on your feet. But I managed to walk you into the house and get you onto the couch. I kept waiting for you to say something - _anything_ - but you never did. You just watched me until you passed out. Eventually I called Rhodey and between the two of us we got you back to your house, but I stayed until I could see you were capable of functioning again. Which was two days later, in case you don't remember that part either."

He did remember, albeit through a think haze. The memories are foggy, and he supposes that it's probably a good thing. "That was a bad year." He acknowledges quietly. "I was a bigger prick than usual, I'm afraid. For a multitude of reasons."

That was the year he'd finally had to stop fucking every redhead he could find, because he'd realized there was something very, very wrong with the fact he couldn't take them back to the mansion like all the others.

The why of that particular revelation hadn't been exactly stunning, but it had absolutely bowled him over with shame.

"What do you mean?" Pepper shifts so that she's propped up on the pillows. It's easier to see his face this way. He shakes his head.

"I just had some… _clarity_ about things I hadn't seen before. Please don't ask me to explain because I'm not sure I can put it into words."

To be precise he wasn't sure he could put it into words without giving himself yet one more sin to atone for, and the list he had was probably already longer than he was going to manage in his lifetime.

Pepper seems to accept this, though it's a little surprising. "Well, if it's any consolation, I loved you despite the fact you were being a bigger prick than usual."

"I'd feel better about that if I didn't know my routine in those days." He makes a face and she gives him a look that demands the whole truth.

The words are bitter and more than a little sour. "I used to spend my parents anniversaries getting as drunk as I could and then hitting the brothel, Pepper. Call it my own twisted version of tradition. If I was that drunk and all I did was come and sit on your steps, forgive me for saying that I'm terribly grateful."

Her smile is a little sad, a little sweet, and too knowing for his comfort. "You usually let me leave work early on that day, and you usually took Rhodey with you. But something came up that night and he couldn't go. So it was just you." She gently closes his open jaw. "Tony, when I came to work for you, I did my research. I knew the date of your parents' death. And I watched that first year. It didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't going to be a one-time occurrence."

He sighs deeply at that, running a hand back through his hair. His next words are full of more than a little self loathing. "It doesn't make what I did forgivable, Pepper. I was a shit. My father would have tanned my hide if he could have done it from wherever he is now."

"Tony...you can't change the past. It sounds trite, I know, and it's probably going to get worse, but bear with me. You're learning. You're finally growing up. And your choices, while extreme, are exactly what everyone expects of you, or should expect from you if they spent any time thinking about it." He was looking thoughtful, and just to tease him a little further out of his funk she added in a very confidential tone, "I'm not sure if anyone's ever mentioned this, Mr. Stark, but you do tend to go a little overboard over anything you decide is worth doing."

He snickers at the comment, acknowledging it's truth. She was right about the past, too - it was the most useless of captors.

"I figure I may be accused of a lot of things, but I'll never be unoriginal." The clock on the bedstand reads 0458. He watches it with wary eyes as the number blinks one minute more.

'Time to crap or get off the pot, Stark.' He turns her chin gently to look at what he is. "Five a.m., Pepper. Time to figure out where we're going from here…."

She blinks and then looks back down at him. "Well, I had wanted a nap before work, but it's a little late for that. Unless you want to take me back to my car where my Blackberry is and I can cancel all your appoints for today and then we can both get some sleep."

He gulps. "What I want, Pepper, is to go _home_. And I want you to get your Blackberry and come with me." He wants this world to exist in the real world, where it couldn't fade away.

"Well...I thought that was a given. And I have to cancel all your appointments or that Blackberry of mine is going to be ringing off the hook."

Her voice is patient, but she waits for his answer.

He knows she doesn't get it, as he sits there and looks at her. Knows it because he is shaking, just a little, and he isn't sure he's going to be able to stop. The last nine hours have been jealousy and lust and anger and desperation all in one large, chaotic heap, and it's getting overwhelming. Looking at her, he's suddenly breathless, and not in a good way. He feels like a man who'd been running for his very life only to come to the edge of a cliff.

There was a plank bridge over that cliff, but it was almost too good to be true. Experience proved that there had to be something wrong with it. And yet there was no way back, only forward into what only god knew how to face.

It seems to him they have always been running. He doesn't know when exactly it started, but it had been dangerously easy habit for the whole time that he's known her. It was the rhythm of their entire dynamic. Confrontation on the other hand, is absolutely terrifying. The opposite of every instinct he's ever had.

He'd had to risk everything last night, though, on the threat of losing everything, and now it's only by desperation that his plan has even worked. That they're not both in pieces. Now that he knows _– knows_ beyond any shadow of a doubt – what was possible for him to have with Pepper, the thought of losing it is exponentially more terrifying.

It's all so fragile, and he's not sure he'll manage to not somehow break it.

She's the only one who has never walked away from him because she thought he was deficient in some way. The only time she's threatened to leave him was because she'd half-thought at the time that he'd been trying to kill himself. Just hours after that she'd helped him follow through on a plan that _should_ have killed him, because she'd heard him speak truth and chosen to accept it.

She's the first smile he sees every morning, the hands that organize the chaos on the edges of his life, the voice in his head calling him back every time he gets lost.

'Which is the problem: so much that is fundamentally irreplaceable rests on shoulders accustomed to carrying so little.'

He feels inadequate on some fundamental level because winning in the face of all odds should have set them both free. He doesn't feel free right now, though. He feels trapped by all the ways it shouldn't have worked, and by all the ways this could still go wrong.

Such painful truths, and he's forgetting how to draw air. She gathers him up. "Shh…

shh…Tony, breathe." It's clear that she doesn't know what to say, has no clue what's trigged this sudden attack. When her offer of comfort seems to make things worse, he can feel her dismay. Still, she is undaunted as she brings her knees up against his back so that he's completely cradled by her body. "Shhh… Breathe for me."

She's surrounding him in a way that's entirely feminine. One hand moves down his spine in soothing strokes while the other cradles the back of his head. Her mouth is right by his ear and her voice along with the thud of her heart is all he can hear over the racing of his own heartbeat. Her body blazes with heat against his own suddenly chilled skin. Her arms are tight around him, her body folded around him offering all the protection she has to give.

This is Pepper. This is the _heart_ of Pepper. Giving, loving, big enough to envelop all of his shit and hold him together until he can do it himself.

"That's it," she croons, and her voice is becoming clearer. "Shhh…" He opens his mouth and sucks a deep breath in. When it causes no pain he exhales and tries it again. It doesn't last long really, at most two or three minutes. He's shaking at the end still, but now it's from cold. There is sweat dotting his forehead and his chest, it makes the sheet clammy against his skin.

When he finally speaks it's with wry sort of humor. "Boy that kind of _sucked_...remind me never to go two days without any sleep again."

She's silent for several minutes as she processes that admission. It isn't until he stirs in her arms that she releases him and lets him pull back. Predictably, she's frowning at him when she does. She's stark naked in bed with him, and that face is all it takes for him to realize that this is "business!Pepper" come to call.

Then the frown eases and relaxes into something more...tender. "It's a good thing I love you, Stark. I'm probably the only woman who's ever rushed you home to tuck you straight into bed for some sleep."

In her eyes he can see her ranting, though. 'Two days? I'm working for an idiot!'

He grins a little, just at the normalcy of her implied indignance. "Can we at least stop at Burger King on the way back home, please? I'm also starving…." The nuts on the bed are the only thing he's eaten since the club late last night.

"They don't have cheeseburgers this early," she tells him sourly as she climbs out of bed and begins searching for her things. The dress is easy to find, but the shoes are a little less so. He has no idea where his socks are. "I'm warning you now that I'm not going to put up with this kind of negligence, Tony. Not after tonight."

He shrugs a little, helplessly. "It's not deliberate, Pepper, it's not like I do it on purpose: I just got a little distracted. I'll have you know that I actually went to that all meeting you had scheduled Friday, and there were several redraws requested by the design team." Not to mention that phone call she'd gotten that from now on would be referred to as the conversation that "shall not be named."

She's not buying a word of it. "Get used to taking naps, Mr. Stark." She holds up one stocking, but can't seem to locate the other one.

"Only if you take one with me, Potts. Not to call you a kettle or anything but I'm not the one who ends up driving home after two am at least three nights every week."

"Whose fault is that, _Iron Man_?" She lets him take the stocking from her hands, though now she's eyeing it like it might come in handy if she follows through on the impulse to strangle him. Secretly, Tony's always loved that grumpy look. He goes in search of his own pants.

"How about this Pepper...we make a deal. I'll start getting eight hours a night the day you let me hire _you_ a secretary."

"How about I just screw you senseless every night and keep at it until you pass out out of habit." She's slipping into her heels and not paying much attention to him despite her comeback.

He grins at that one. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed her bitchiness. "Fine. But I reserve the right to use the same tactic whenever you refuse to take your lunch break."

"I always take a lunch break, Tony."

"It's not a break when you bring your computer with you. Well, unless you're watching internet porn."

The look that comment earns him could fire a kiln. It doesn't change the absolute steel he lets slip into his voice. "We're going to be renegotiating certain parts of your work schedule, Pepper, and I'm fully prepared to be a bastard to get my way."

"As if it helped you so much in the past..." Finally she's as ready as she's going to get. It's not like she had much to put on in the first place. "I'm driving," she informs him as she snatches his keys from the bedside table.

He's still looking for his shoes. "Go ahead and tell yourself that, Pepper. Whatever gets you through the day."

"I'll show you how I get through the day..._after_ we get some sleep."

He thinks about this a moment, before he snickers. "Fine…after I take care of a few things in the basement. And fuck you at least one more time."

It's a challenge, and a clear one at that. She turns and regards him with a deadly kind of sincerity. "Tony? I apologize for not making myself clear earlier. Let me say this more plainly: You're not the only one who can threaten spanking. And unlike with you, no one on the board would blame me."


End file.
